one day and milk
another, to see how it would turn out; to part Fanny's hair sometimes
in the middle, sometimes on the right, and sometimes on the left side;
and to play all sorts of fantastic pranks with the children,
occasionally bringing them to the table as fictitious or historical
characters found in her favorite books. Rebecca amused her mother and
her family generally, but she never was counted of serious importance,
and though considered "smart" and old for her age, she was never
thought superior in any way. Aurelia's experience of genius, as
exemplified in the deceased Lorenzo de Medici led her into a greater
admiration of plain, every-day common sense, a quality in which
Rebecca, it must be confessed, seemed sometimes painfully deficient.

Hannah was her mother's favorite, so far as Aurelia could indulge
herself in such recreations as partiality. The parent who is obliged to
feed and clothe seven children on an income of fifteen dollars a month
seldom has time to discriminate carefully between the various members
of her brood, but Hannah at fourteen was at once companion and partner
in all her mother's problems. She it was who kept the house while
Aurelia busied herself in barn and field. Rebecca was capable of
certain set tasks, such as keeping the small children from killing
themselves and one another, feeding the poultry, picking up chips,
hulling strawberries, wiping dishes; but she was thought irresponsible,
and Aurelia, needing somebody to lean on (having never enjoyed that
luxury with the gifted Lorenzo), leaned on Hannah. Hannah showed the
result of this attitude somewhat, being a trifle careworn in face and
sharp in manner; but she was a self-contained, well-behaved, dependable
child, and that is the reason her aunts had invited her to Riverboro to
be a member of their family and participate in all the advantages of
their loftier position in the world. It was several years since Miranda
and Jane had seen the children, but they remembered with pleasure that
Hannah had not spoken a word during the interview, and it was for this
reason that they had asked for the pleasure of her company. Rebecca, on
the other hand, had dressed up the dog in John's clothes, and being
requested to get the three younger children ready for dinner, she had
held them under the pump and then proceeded to "smack" their hair flat
to their heads by vigorous brushing, bringing them to the table in such
a moist and hideous state of